An eclectic mix of rising stars and savvy veterans will vie for status on the PGA Tour at the School for the first time since 2012. In total, 168 players will compete from Thursday to Sunday in Florida to secure a card for the American circuit. The litigants will play four rounds without a cut, two at Dye’s Valley and two more at the Sawgrass Country Club. The top five and ties will get the card to compete in 2024 at the elite level and the next 40 qualifiers and ties will obtain some category of the Korn Ferry Tour for the next year.
The cream of the crop from Ludvig Aberg’s (Texas Tech) promotion in the NCAA will try this week to carve out a place on the American Circuit, where the Swede is already a star after his unstoppable breakthrough this summer, with a victory in his trophy cabinet (RSM Classic) and a second place after falling in the playoff at the Sanderson, not to mention his victory at the Omega European Masters of the DP World Tour and his participation in the glory achieved by Europe in the Roman Ryder Cup.
The Nordic marked the way by achieving full playing rights thanks to leading the PGA University 2023. Three others from that top 5 (Fred Biondi, second, from Florida; Ross Steelman, fourth, from Georgia Tech, and Sam Bennett, fifth, from Texas A&M) compete this week, as do a couple of youngsters who finished in the top 10 university (William Mouw, sixth, from Pepperdine, and Ricky Castillo, ninth, from Florida; Sam Choi, from Pepperdine, eleventh in that ranking, will also play). These freshly graduated lads in professionalism at 22 and 23 years old are eager for a place in Olympus. By the way, the Belgian Adrien Dumont de Chassart (Illinois), third in the PGA University, already has the card thanks to his excellent performances in the summer at the Korn Ferry, where he won his first tournament as a professional.
The Brazilian Biondi clinched the double at the last NCAA final by winning the individual title and also the team title with Florida, but since then he has not been able to get going after turning professional. Now he has the opportunity to secure the card, just like his gator teammate Ricky Castillo. The Texan Bennett already showed his virtues at the Masters, where he was up the first two days and finished sixteenth. Steelman has been one of the pillars of Georgia Tech alongside the South African Christo Lamprecht.
Speaking of new South African blood, it is worth noting the presence at the School this week of Aldrich Potgieter, who at 19 years old in September intends to grab the PGA Tour card already. Watch out for him because his quality is unquestionable, as he demonstrated a year and a half ago by winning the British Amateur. And another talent to keep an eye on is Keita Nakajima. The Japanese, also 23 years old, has great achievements: he held the number one amateur spot in the world for 87 weeks and has won six titles on his country’s PGA Tour, including three victories in the last six months.
Among the roster of 168 contenders, we find older players like Wesley Bryan (33 years old), who had a great tournament at the RSM Classic, boasts of having obtained three victories on the Korn Ferry Tour (then Web.com) in 2016 and took the RBC Heritage in 2017. There are other winners on the American Circuit playing this School Final: Brice Garnett, Austin Cook, Richy Werenski, Adam Long and Patton Kizzire, among others. In addition, from the Challenge Tour comes Julian Suri. The American did not achieve promotion to the DP World Tour in the Road to Mallorca and will try in Ponte Vedra to make the jump to the PGA Tour. On the list of international golfers, the Scottish Russell Knox, the Argentine Tano Goya, the Japanese Satoshi Kodaira, the Australian Dave Micheluzzi, the Swede Henrik Norlander, the German Jeremy Paul and the Austrian Matthias Schwab stand out. There is no member of the Armada in the final of the PGA Tour School.
